


Stumped

by Fabrisse



Category: Mirabile - Janet Kagan
Genre: Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 00:44:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabrisse/pseuds/Fabrisse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie's at Loch Moose for a little vacation, but something's been changing the EC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stumped

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cmshaw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cmshaw/gifts).



> I'm so thrilled to find someone else who loves this book as I do.
> 
> Gileswench betaed, as she did all my Yuletide 2012 stories.

It’s not entirely fair to say I hate pansies. They’re pretty, and pretty is worth something in my book. They’ve also given us other pretties – like dahlias – and lots of good food. I’d heard of artichoke from ship’s records, but I’d never tasted one until Leo’s pansies chained up.

But right now I hate pansies. Not yellow ones or even that nice dark purple; I hate red pansies. I’m also not too fond of red dahlias; this year they’ve given us various bees. Honeybees, I can get behind without hesitation, but there is no power under the Mirabilan sun that can convince me there’s any use for sweat bees.

All of which is neither here nor there. It had been a particularly red spring, and most of them were playing nice. New grain crops would provide some greater variety in our diet, always a plus to have back-up staples in case one kind of crop fails, and the new mutation in the Dylan Thomas sheep was going to give us a lovely pale green wool.

Let me start again at the beginning. I was tired of reading red rice genes, even if we were going to get oats, barley, rye, sorghum, and quinoa from them. 

Once the project was over, I decided to visit Ellie and her kids at the lodge. Susan had gone up a day or so earlier once she was sure that there was nothing funny with Janzen’s sheep, and Janzen had joined her. Leo was already up at his old homestead because a neighbor had called to let us know his pansies had bloomed scarlet again.

Aklilu ran up and threw his arms around my legs as I opened the front door at Loch Moose Lodge. “Mama Jason,” he said, his grin proudly displaying the space where he’d lost his first tooth.

“Hi, buddy. If you let go, I can hug you right.”

He let go, and wrapped his arms around my neck when I bent over. I got a smacking kiss on my cheek before he pulled away and said, “The pansies are all red, but that’s because they’re beans. Except some are trees.”

I nodded at the information as Elly came out and hugged me. “Leo already reserved your favorite room for you, Annie.”

Ilanith came out of the woodwork to say, “And he just sent a message that you’re to meet them all for dinner in two hours. No work until then.” She was trying to look stern and failing miserably.

“I promise. I’ll open the windows and have a nap.”

“Have you heard anything from Mike?” she asked.

“Selima gave birth to a bouncing boy.” I glanced at Elly. “They wanted to know…”

“There’s space here. I’d be honored.” Elly grinned. “Now, you go and get that nap. Chris is fixing roast suckling pig for dinner tonight.”

“What?”

Elly said, “Baby frankenswine that we got before they could do any damage. Their parents are being smoked for winter rations.”

“A nap sounds great before a good dinner like that.”

***  
Two hours later, Leo greeted me with all the enthusiasm a week’s separation required. An hour after that, we joined Susan and Janzen in the dining room for Chris’s delicious suckling pig.

I waxed eloquent for several minutes about the gene reads in the red rice patch. There were too many insect strains, although several of them, like the honeybees from the dahlias, would be good pollinators, and, of course, the new grains would add variety to our diet, if we could get them to grow over a wide enough area. “What about you? Anything particularly significant among the pansies?”

They all glanced at each other.

Susan finally started. “Really, it’s good news. We have a couple of new flowers, but mostly it’s beans. Fava beans, lima beans, black beans, pinto beans, three kinds of lentils, flageolet, soy beans, two types of peas, garbanzos, string beans, runner beans, and haricots.”

Janzen said, “I had either Leo or Susan check my gene reads, but my patch had marjoram, thyme, oregano, basil, tarragon, and rosemary. I also got a couple of bushes – blueberry, mountain laurel, one called hydrangea that looks like it will chain up to a sugar maple tree, and another called mulberry…”

“Mulberry?” I asked. “Did anyone check about whether this is a good climate for silk worms?”

Leo chuckled. “Not yet, Annie, but we noticed it too. And they’re predicted to chain up to quince which, along with all the herbs, really thrilled Chris.”

I grinned at them. “I’m beginning to think this EC gives us so much good food because it knows Chris will cook it right.”

Susan took her last bite of suckling frankenswine and sighed with pleasure. “I believe that. Even the beans look to chain up to trees if the EC is right. Hazelnuts, two types of walnut, chestnut, and pecan. We haven’t finished running the program for secondary helices over all of them yet, but it’s good.”

I gave Leo the hairy eyeball. “All right, what aren’t you telling me?”

Leo sopped up the gravy with some of Chris’s soda bread. “I started with the unusual pansies. About half the beans Susan mentioned came out of my patch. I also got something called fennel, sorrel, and sassafras. But there was one patch where several pansies had grown together and created something bigger.” He shaped his hands around a patch of table a bit bigger than his plate and indicated several plants growing within it. “The flowers from several plants fused and, it took me a couple of tries with the gene read, but it looks like we might get our first earth-authentic wild birds out of them: ducks. They’re a kind called mallard and ship’s records indicate they’re mostly wild, but could be domesticated for food.”

"Do they have the hopping problem?" I asked.

Leo shook his head. "They waddle like the Pekin ducks we have in a couple of places. They're the ancestors of the Pekin, if I can trust ship's records." 

Not one word of bad news from the pansy genes, and they all looked like they’d been invited to their own funeral.

“Something’s going on.” I focused on Janzen. He still thought I was scary. “You,” I pointed directly at him, “get to tell me what it is.”

Janzen sighed and said, “Did you come up from the lab?” 

“No, the rice field was nearer to Haffenhaff.”

Susan picked up the thread. “Then you missed it. Mama Jason, there are changes going on in this EC. Not only is something felling the popcorn trees, and I mean chewing at them until they fall, there’s water everywhere. The joined pansies? The ones that may give us those ducks? They’re under water, mostly.”

Leo said, “We put cages over them. Enough to maybe protect them from predators, but Susan’s right, I flew up from Sabah’s shop and the flooding extends back quite a ways from that direction.”

Susan finished. “All we can tell from ship’s records is that it definitely isn’t anything we know is growing around here. It’s not moose or deer or otter or odder. Even the boar and the frankenswine leave a different destruction pattern than this.”

“Are we sure it’s earth authentic? Or even a dragon's tooth?”

Leo shook his head. “We’ve been too busy reading genes to explore. It’s not something coming near people, or the folks around here would have noticed before now.”

Susan rolled her eyes and explained to Janzen. “No one knew there were frankenswine or boar until they had good sized colonies going. This change could have been happening slowly for years.”

“Is anyone trying to grow rice back there?” Janzen asked. “It’s not like there’ve never been families or groups who start a smallholding without registration before.”

Leo shrugged. “I don’t think so, but that’s what tomorrow’s for, right? Searching out the source of our troubles?”

I kissed him quickly on the lips and grinned. “I know the source of mine. And you’re welcome to give me as much trouble as you want tonight.”

***  
The next morning, we split up. Leo and Janzen were taking some of the local kids, including Ilanith, on a survival hike. They’d be gone two nights, but both of them promised to mark any changes they saw to the local terrain. Meanwhile, I let Susan maneuver the hover while she showed me the area affected.

We had a good idea of the extent of the problem, when I asked her to land at the edge of the backed up water. 

“When are Mike and Selima coming back?” She asked.

“They aren’t.” 

“I guess he really likes working with Sabah. Or is the the joys of the city?”

I chuckled. “Nope. I’ve cleared him to put together his own team. He and Selima are taking a couple promising interns, and starting a new station nearer Goddamn.”

Her face hardened. She blinked a couple of times before saying. “Well, he’s been with you longer than I have.”

“Nearly ten years more. You hadn’t had your first wilderness training when he started jasoning.” I knelt beside a stump. It was pointed and there were signs of gnawing.

Susan squatted beside me. “Big teeth. Good thing it’s herbivorous.”

“Anything else that dentation tells you?”

She gave a half smile. “It’s not Mirabilan. It might not be earth authentic, whatever it is, but it’s not from around here.”

“Do you think we can find something fresh enough that we might be able to get a DNA swab?” I checked the tree more thoroughly. “From the air, did it look like it was just the popcorn trees that were getting hit?”

We both rose as Susan nodded. “None of the ballyhoos were injured, but some of the smoking pines had marks that didn’t look like boar or deer.” 

“Indicates a preference for hard wood, maybe. The duff from the ballyhoo would be off putting, and the wood is tough with an ax, much less teeth.”

Susan looked at the five tree stumps in our immediate area. “Do you think it takes a mob to do this much damage?”

“No idea.”

We walked a bit farther and nearly tripped on a mound. Something with an earth based metabolism had been spraying it with urine. It smelled god-awful, and I didn’t want to know what it would come across like to a species with a nose more sensitive than mine.

“Mama Jason?”

“Yes?”

“How long before you’ll think I’m ready to start a separate team? Will it take ten years?”

I sampled the mound while I figured out the best way to answer her. She let the silence go on while we both did our work. Susan even made some good basic sketches as I took a couple of photographs to upload and run a match on later.

“Twice I’ve suggested you go to Right Here and work with Sabah. Twice you’ve refused.”

She gave me the hairy eyeball and said, “Why would I want to be cooped up in a research facility when I could be doing something exciting?”

“Why would I suggest that you lead a team without the basic academic grounding Sabah and _his_ team could give you?”

Susan’s hands went to her hips and she said, “I stabilized the odders and spread them to any place with a compatible EC and a clogweed problem. I helped cobble together the tulip bats.”

“Yes. And you did a great job with both. But you’re living on the adrenalin of always facing a crisis. I know what it’s like. I do it, too.”

“Don’t you think being able to handle a crisis is better than running a program?”

“No.” I walked away until I found another of the smelly mounds. “Now what’s this for?”

“Maybe it’s the whatever’s trash dump?”

“Maybe.” I sampled this one, too. Susan marked it correctly and added it to the bag. I said, “I can afford to be an adrenalin junkie because I’ve done the background work. It wasn’t the formal internship system that I set up with Sabah, but I did years of the little things. You’ve never babysat embryos just coming out of cold storage. It’s important to do it right, and I expect a team leader to know how to do it right even if she never has to do it herself. You’re never the one to sit and make more sample snaggers or knit incubator blankets in the winter time. You’ll do the big jobs; I’m not saying you’re afraid of hard work. But your field notes are always far more thorough than your lab notes unless you think someone’s going to review them immediately.”

“I…” She stopped dead. “Annie, look.”

I did as she said, and noticed a large webbed footprint. 

Susan said, “Ten kilos?”

“Probably. Good catch.” We got to work making a plaster cast after I’d photographed and Susan had drawn it.

“Once the cast is dry, we should probably head back to Loch Moose. I want to get the information we have into the computer before dinner so we can get started on the search. I think this one’s going to need brute force.”

“Probably. Run it in my room or yours?”

“Are all the pansy gene reads done?”

“We haven’t gotten the next step up the chain for over half of them, but…” She shrugged.

“As long as we know what they’re going to be next year, we can worry about what they might turn into later. Let’s divide the work. You input the smelly samples and that swab to see if there’s anything that can give us a gene read. I’ll enter the pictures of the tooth marks and the tracks to start the brute force search.”

“Divide and conquer.” She smiled for the first time in over an hour.

I smiled back. “Exactly.”

***  
I asked Chris if we could sit in the kitchen and eat with her since it had been awhile since I’d seen her. 

Susan had hared off to her room to start her part of the process. I’d stopped by on my way downstairs, but she’d been in the middle of a deep talk with Elly. All I’d heard was, “But I’m _better_ than Mike at…” and walked away. It was true – depending on what she was talking about. But sometimes I needed to remind her of the things Mike was better at.

Elly made a fourth at the small chef’s table in the corner. The dining room was quiet. “We’re expecting a big crowd for a wedding in three days, so we didn’t accept too many reservations this week. Gives us time to spruce up.”

“And me time to bake the wedding cake,” Chris added. She put plates of pan-fried trout and wheat spatzen in front of us with a big bowl of Brussels sprouts in the middle of the table. It was delicious. “I can’t wait until the pansies start producing herbs. The beans are a great thing for long winters from what I’ve been reading. And if we can make a go of soy beans, there are so many recipes from a condiment to something called tofu, but we've had a hard time establishing herbs and they're going to give me so many more variations to try on every dish. Some of them are medicinal, too.”

Her enthusiasm was infectious and I found myself grinning. “Well, Chris _Jason_ Maryanska should start pulling out every medicinal reference and putting together recipe books for the new beans and herbs. I don’t know how many of them are going to be viable, but I already know we’ll get more takers for new foodstuffs if there are notes about the proper ways to prepare them.” I paid close attention to my pan fried trout for a few minutes. Heavenly, as most of Chris’s dishes are.

“And the _duck_. I know they aren’t domesticated, and we shouldn’t waste too many eggs, but there are ways to preserve duck meat in its own fat. Pekins haven't worked around here. Plus, if we have enough wetlands to turn them loose, they’re supposed to be very prolific. Like the beans, it will give us more variety for winter, eventually.”

“Wetlands." That struck me. "Susan, did Leo say the pansies that fused together were in a very damp patch?”

“They were nearly underwater,” she said. “Leo’s place isn’t that close to the creek.”

“A ten kilo animal is not eating a whole tree, much less multiple ones,” I said.

Susan jumped up, and Elly pulled her hand. “It can wait until you’ve finished your dinner. Chris went to a lot of trouble to make sure it tastes good hot.”

Susan sat down and said, “You’re right. Sorry, Chris.”

We took some molasses snaps and tea up to my room while Elly helped Jen and Aklilu clean up.

I let Susan enter the wetlands parameter into my search and gave her the space to talk.

“I’m ready to lead a team, even if I am younger than Mike.”

“Soon. But not without an internship with Sabah.”

“So can I start the year as soon as we’re done here.”

I shook my head. “Hear me out. No one on Mike’s new team is going to have the kind of survival experience anyone raised by Elly has by the time they’re twelve. Mike is not as good as you are with survival training. What I’d like to do is have you spend three months with Mike’s new team teaching them how to read the wilderness. You will be Mike’s second in command when it comes to outdoor work, just as Selima will be his second in command when it comes to the programming. The interns won’t be allowed out on even brief assignments until they’ve passed a test Leo designs for them. You’ll be the one to train them to that standard. _Then_ you serve your internship with Sabah – with time off for lambing. Chie-Hoon doesn’t want to lead a team. I’ve asked. So when you’re done with Sabah, the new team out beyond Haffenhaff will be yours.”

Susan digested this for a moment. “Is that a good area for sheep?”

“No reason you and Janzen couldn’t work up an EC report to find out.”

She chewed her lower lip thoughtfully.

“Is my lab work really substandard?”

I put down my tea and hugged her. “I didn’t say that. I said you didn’t pay as close attention to it as you do your field work. It’s better than some people could do with a lifetime of training. But it’s not up to what I know you can do.”

“Making sample guns is boring.”

“Yep. So’s keeping the hover working, but it’s still necessary.”

She gave a bone deep sigh, but before she could say anything, the com blatted from across the room.

There was no picture, but Leo’s voice came loud and clear. “Annie?”

“Keep it clean, Leo. Susan’s with me.”

He chuckled and I smiled at the sound. Leo said, “I’ve got the group to safe dry ground for tonight, but it was just after dark when we found it. Dry was tough. We’ve seen some unusual stumps?”

“Pointed?” I said.

“Yep. Only thin trees. I’ve found a few that from their leaf patterning I think are earth-authentics we haven’t caught. I’m bringing back drawings and samples from some very enthusiastic junior jasons. Also we caught a fish that I don’t recognize. I have a gene sample to run on it when we get back.”

“Scales and fins?”

“Looks earth-authentic to me,” Leo said.

Susan piped in, “Even odds that Chris already has a recipe for it.”

Leo said, “No bet.”

Susan said, “I’m heading to bed.”

“See you bright and early, kiddo.”

***  
The next day was just a repeat. Susan was quiet as we sampled more of the smelly mounds. We had both concluded that they had to be a territory marker, but whether they were being left because it was instinctive or because there were enough that territory was an issue we couldn’t say. 

That night we loaded the new samples and changed a couple of parameters on my search. 

I thought the Loch Moose monster had bellowed me out of a sound sleep, but it was just the computer. There was a soft knock at my door. Susan was there in flannel pajamas. “I told both computers to sound in both rooms if a match was found.” She blinked sleepily. “Your room won. What is it?”

“Beaver.”

She peered over my shoulder. “That is the strangest thing I’ve seen since Mabob.” She tapped the picture of the tail. “What’s a mammal doing with scales?”

“I think it's just patterning, but still, it uses the tail for swimming apparently.”

“It’s what’s created the wetland we’re seeing?”

“I think so. It’s marvelous engineering.”

She smiled at me. “Mama Jason, if I ask nicely, do you think Chie-Hoon would be willing to be my second in command? I’m going to need someone who’s better at the finicky stuff than I am, and more experience has to be a good thing, right?”

“I think whether ze says yes or no, Chie-Hoon will be honored that you asked. You’ll work with Sabah?”

“Yeah, Annie, I will. I had to talk it out with Elly to see why you’re right.”

I rested my hand on her shoulder. “So do I sometimes. Elly’s a good listener.”

*** 

The next day, the group returned from their trek. Every computer in the lodge it seemed like was running samples. 

When Leo and I stopped necking about two hours later, he said, “I think we need to train openers by sending them around existing settlements.”

I nodded. “To catch the earth-authentics that might be cropping up nearby.”

“This… what did you call it? Beaver? … is benign, but the frankenswine wasn’t. We can’t take the chance.”

I snuggled closer and said, “Want to have dinner up here?”

He called down for our supper, then let me give him a full body check before it arrived.

“Actually,” I said, “I’ve been thinking about setting up opener-jason teams, smaller than our emergency groups.”

“Like you.”

I nodded. “Like Mike’s new team. Like the one Susan will be leading a year or so from now.”

He thought about it. “Train on the academics with Sabah. Train on the emergency protocols with you…”

“And the wilderness protocols with you or Nikolai…”

“Serve a short apprenticeship with an opener around a settlement area…”

“Then finish up as a steady team to open new territory,” I said.

Leo nodded. “How many good people did we lose right after landing because we didn’t have ways to train for skills? It’s a good idea, Annie. And I’ll bet Susan and Janzen will end up as one of them.”

“I think they may be ready to do some settling down for awhile. Maybe not quite ready to do something about our underpopulation problem yet…”

Leo said, “But they’re getting there.”

There was a knock at the door and then Ilanith and Jen brought us our supper. It was shaping up to be a good vacation.


End file.
